Inverness

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<tr><td style="width: 50%;">Gaelic:</td><td>Inbhir Nis</td></tr> <tr><td style="width: 50%;">Scots:</td><td>Inverness</td></tr>

Inverness (Inbhir Nis)
Location
Image:Inverness (Location).png
OS grid reference:	NH665445
Statistics
Population:	44,610. <ref>General Register Office for Scotland - Mid-2004 Population Estimates for Settlements</ref>

Administration
Council area:	Highland
Constituent country:	Scotland
Sovereign state:	United Kingdom
Other
Police force:	Northern Constabulary
Lieutenancy area:	Inverness
Former county:	Inverness-shire
Post office and telephone
Post town:	INVERNESS
Postal district:	IV1-IV3, IV5, IV13, IV63
Dialling code:	01463
Politics
Scottish Parliament:	Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber and Ross, Skye and Inverness West
UK Parliament:	Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
European Parliament:	Scotland
Image:Flag of Scotland.svg

This article is about the city in Scotland. For other uses, see Inverness (disambiguation).

Inverness (Inbhir Nis in Scottish Gaelic) is the only city in the Highland council area and the Highlands of Scotland. The name of the city is closely associated, however, with various other senses of place and area:

a royal burgh
a parish
a county (also known as Inverness-shire)
a district of the county
a district of the Highland region (1975 to 1996)
a committee area of the Highland Council (since 1996)
a lieutenancy area
a district of burghs constituency (Inverness Burghs) (1708 to 1918)
a burgh constituency (Inverness constituency) (1918 to 1983)

Inverness was granted city status by the Queen in December 2000, and celebrated its new status officially in March 2001. This city status was granted, however, without definition of either boundaries or representative corporate body. The right to speak for the city is assumed by the Highland Council, in association with a local enterprise company<ref>The Highland Council has a website devoted to the City of Inverness[1]. The website includes maps[2].</ref>.

In 2001, the population of the city, or the urban area centred on the former burgh, was 51,832, and is expected to double over the next 30 years. Recently, Inverness was named the fastest growing city in Western Europe, with many new housing estates being built around the city. A large number of Polish immigrants have recently caused a considerable increase to the Invernesian population and helped contribute to the local economy. Tourism is important to the city's economy, as are administration and healthcare.

The city is the self-proclaimed "Capital of the Highlands". It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area and for the Inverness committee area of the Highland Council. Between 1975 and 1996, as a town without even the status of a local government burgh, it was the administrative centre of the Highland region and the Inverness district of the region.

The district was created, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, by combining the royal burgh and the district of the county with the Aird district of the county. The rest of the county was divided between other districts of the Highland region and the Western Isles islands council area.

The area of the district became the Inverness committee area of the Highland Council, which was created as a unitary council when districts were abolished under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.

1 Geography
2 Buildings
3 Economy
4 Culture & Sports
5 History
6 Area committee
7 Parliamentary burgh and constituency
8 Areas of the city
9 Town twinning
10 Footnotes
11 External links

[edit] Geography

Inverness lies at the mouth of the River Ness as it flows into the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland. It is from this that the city derives its name: Inbhir Nis Scots Gaelic for "mouth (or confluence) of the Ness". The river flows from nearby Loch Ness and the Caledonian Canal connects Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy.

Islands in the River Ness, the Bught and- the river banks form a pleasant series of walks, as do the forested hills of Craig Phadraig and Craig Dunain. The city is well served with shops, as it is the main shopping centre for an area of nearly 26,000 km².

[edit] Buildings

Buildings in Inverness include Inverness Castle. Built on the site of its medieval predecessor in 1835 it is now a Sheriff Court. There are numerous churches, including St Andrew's Cathedral (Episcopalian), which has a curiously square-topped look to its spires, as funds ran out before they could be completed. However, the oldest church is the Old High Church, on St Michael's Mount by the riverside, a site perhaps used for worship since Celtic times. The church tower dates from mediaeval times, making it the oldest surviving building in Inverness. Used by the Church of Scotland congregation of Old High St Stephen's, it is the venue for the annual Kirking of the Council attended by local councillors. Information about the riverside churches is available on the riverside churches website.

Inverness College is the hub campus for the UHI Millennium Institute.

[edit] Economy

Most of the traditional industries such as distilling have been replaced by high-tech businesses, including the design and manufacture of diabetes diagnostic kits. Retailing is another big sector. The Eastgate shopping centre has recently gone under a major expansion, making it one of the biggest shopping centres in Scotland. Shops include Next, Debenhams, HMV, Crabtree & Evelyn, Zara and FCUK as well as a food court home to fast food places like KFC and Pizza Hut.

Inverness is the new home for Scottish Natural Heritage following that body's relocation from Edinburgh under the auspices of the Scottish Executive's decentralisation strategy.

Inverness is linked to the Black Isle across the Moray Firth by the Kessock Bridge. It has a railway station<ref>The Highland Main Line, the Aberdeen-Inverness Line and the Far North Line meet at Inverness (Ordnance Survey grid reference NH667454). Also, Kyle of Lochalsh services run to and from Inverness via the Far North Line to Dingwall.</ref> with services to Perth, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, to Aberdeen, to Thurso and Wick, and to Kyle of Lochalsh. Inverness Airport<ref>Ordnance Survey grid reference for Inverness Airport (access from A96 road): NH776508.</ref> is located 15 km east of the city and has scheduled flights to airports across the UK including London, Edinburgh and the islands to the north and west of Scotland. Three trunk roads (the A9, A82 and A96) provide access to Aberdeen, Perth, Elgin, Thurso and Glasgow.

Inverness Lieutenancy (Site of city shown in red)

Image:River Ness.jpg

[edit] Culture & Sports

Inverness is an important centre for bagpipe players and lovers. Every September the city hosts the Northern Meeting, the most prestigious solo piping competition in the world. The Inverness cape, a garment worn by pipers the world over in the rain, is not necessarily made in Inverness.

Another major event in calendar is the annual City of Inverness Highland Games. In 2006 Inverness hosted Scotland's biggest ever Highland Games over two days in July, featuring the Masters World Championships, the showcase event for heavies aged over 40 years. 2006 was the first year that the Masters World Championships had been held outside the United States, and it attracted many top heavies from around the world to the Inverness area.

Inverness has a blossoming music scene which offers lots of young, new bands exiting opertunities. The current music scene within Inverness generally leans towards an emo/punk style, but there are also bands who show features of different genres such as rock, metal, pop, classical, grunge, industrial and traditional Scottish music. The recent opening of the IronWorks has allowed famous bands to play in Inverness for the first time and has also acted as a launch-pad for local bands.

The city is home to the football clubs Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. and Clachnacuddin F.C.. Bught Park, located in the centre of Inverness is the finishing point of the annual Loch Ness marathon and home of Inverness Shinty Club.

In 2007, the city is set to play host to Highland 2007 - a celebration of the culture of the Highlands.

[edit] History

Inverness was one of the chief strongholds of the Picts, and in 565 was visited by Saint Columba with the intention of converting the Pictish king Brude, who is supposed to have resided in the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrig (168 m), 2.4 km west of the city. A church or a monk's cell is thought to have been established by early Celtic monks on St Michael's Mount, a mound close to the river, now the site of the Old High Church and graveyard. The castle is said to have been built by Máel Coluim III of Scotland, after he had razed to the ground the castle in which Mac Bethad according to much later tradition, murdered Máel Coluim's father Donnchad, and which stood on a hill around 1 km to the north-east.

Inverness had four traditional fairs, one of them being Legavrik (leth-gheamradh).

William the Lion (d. 1214) granted Inverness four charters, by one of which it was created a royal burgh. Of the Dominican abbey founded by Alexander III in 1233 hardly a trace remains. On his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, Donald, Lord of the Isles, harried the city, and sixteen years later James I held a parliament in the castle to which the northern chieftains were summoned, of whom three were executed for asserting an independent sovereignty.

In 1562, during the progress undertaken to suppress Huntly's insurrection, Queen Mary was denied admittance into the castle by the governor, who belonged to the earl's faction, and whom she afterwards therefore caused to be hanged. The house in which she lived meanwhile stood in Bridge Street until the 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for the second Bridge Street development. The city's Marymass Fair, on the Saturday nearest August 15th, (a tradition revived in 1986) is said to commemorate Queen Mary as well as the Virgin Mary.

Beyond the northern limits of the city Oliver Cromwell built a fort capable of accommodating 1000 men, but with the exception of a portion of the ramparts it was demolished at the Restoration. In 1715 the Jacobites occupied the royal fortress as a barracks. In 1727 the government built the first Fort George here, but in 1746 it surrendered to the Jacobites and they blew it up.

Culloden Moor lies nearby, and was the site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which ended the Jacobite Rising of 1745-1746.

On September 7 1921 the only UK Cabinet meeting to be held outside London took place in the Town House, when David Lloyd George, on holiday in Gairloch called an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in Ireland. The Inverness Formula composed at this meeting was the basis of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Image:RiverNess InvernessCastle.jpg

[edit] Area committee

The committee area consists of 23 out of the 80 Highland Council wards. Each ward elects one councillor by the first past the post system of election.

The area is represented by 13 independent councillors, six Labour councillors, two Scottish National Party councillors and two Liberal Democrat councillors.

[edit] Parliamentary burgh and constituency

As a component of Inverness District of Burghs Inverness was a parliamentary burgh from 1708 to 1918. The other burghs of this district of burghs constituency were Forres, Fortrose and Nairn. It was a constituency of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1801 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1918.

In 1918 the Inverness burgh was merged into the then new Inverness constituency. The other components of the district of burghs were divided between the Moray and Nairn constituency and the Ross and Cromarty constituency.

The rest of the new Inverness constituency consisted of the mainland and Inner Hebridean areas of the former Inverness-shire constituency. The Outer Hebridean area of the Inverness-shire constituency was merged into the Western Isles constituency.

In 1983, eight years after the local government county of Inverness-shire had been divided between the Highland and Grampian regions and the Western Isles council area, the Inverness constituency was largely replaced by the Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber constituency.

Ex-Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy was born in Inverness